


The Holly and the Ivy (and the Mistletoe)

by Kittywitch



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Botany, Christmas, F/M, Holly - Freeform, Mistletoe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-02
Updated: 2014-12-02
Packaged: 2018-02-27 22:55:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2709695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittywitch/pseuds/Kittywitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At a Christmas party sometime in the future, our favourite botanist has a bit of a rant about the difference between holly and mistletoe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Holly and the Ivy (and the Mistletoe)

“I can’t believe how little Christmas parties have changed in two hundred years.”

“You ought to see how little’s changed two hundreds years in the other direction.” said the Doctor, taking a sip of what was rather hopefully labelled egg nog. He frowned.

“With the exception of this drink. There was a wonderful, brief period in the 1900s where eggnog was a palatable beverage, one that didn’t need to be cut half with rum to even be swallowed!” The Doctor slammed his small, soft globe upon the nearest surface, and it sealed itself automatically. The cup, such as it was, resembled nothing so much as a Christmas bauble crossed with a jellyfish, and with no hand upon it, it rolled aimlessly across the wood grain plastic counter.

“And now we have this peppermint and pumpkin spice medley based entirely on the memories of what pumpkins tasted like before they went extinct!”

Peri snorted into her drink. It really didn’t take anything like anything she could compare it to, except that she could tell it was trying to be festive. And milky. And probably alcoholic.

“Okay, accept for the faux-nog, which is totally unlike 1980s eggnog because I can actually drink it without gagging, not much else has changed.”

“Nothing’s changed? _Nothing’s changed_ _‽_ Feh!” the Doctor exclaimed. “All these plastic snow festoons all about the place?” The Doctor began to stride around the room, ranting to Peri and getting the attention of more than a few party guests, who quickly found themselves asking each other who precisely invited the badly dressed man who was loudly ranting about the “good old days”, which gauging by his apparent age, he should have no memory of at all.

 

“Holographic dancing snowmen, not a cracker or a ghost story in the place, and that ridiculous carol playing over the musical file system!” he huffed, moving towards a door. Peri followed after, tossing an apologetic smile at another woman who was watching the pair with her eyes narrowed. The stranger smiled sympathetically and jerked her head towards a man who was probably her husband; or else she wouldn't still be standing with him as he drunkenly hummed "You Wouldn't Download a Christmas Tree". Peri wasn't sure if sympathy over drunk husbands was exactly what she was going for, but she'd take it in the circumstances. After all, accepting gifts you didn't think would really fit was a part of Christmas no number of centuries could change.

 

“Now _that_ I can’t stand for,” said Peri, placing her hands on her hips as if the plant had personally offended her. “I’m not going to give it a hard time for being plastic, but it’s plastic _holly_. They are asking people to kiss under plastic holly. What kind of messed-up future have you brought me to where people are printing their Christmas decorations out of plastic and they choose to print out plastic holly and call it mistletoe?”

“Yes, Peri, that is in fact holly,” said the Doctor, derailed from his rant by Peri going off on a tangent of her own. The rest of the people present, not knowing who these people were, only that they were having a loud domestic about Christmas decorations at a party; where doing their dead level best to politely imagine the pair dressed entirely incorrectly for the decade didn’t exist at all.

“One is a self sustaining bush and the other is a climbing parasite!” Peri whined to the Doctor, the only person listening to her at this point. “They are clearly different species!”

“They don’t even look similar.” Peri grumbled. “You should be able to tell the difference between red berries and pointy leaves, or small rounded leaves and white berries!”

“You’re right, they don’t.”

“The only way you could mistake holly for mistletoe is if someone else told you it was mistletoe and you told someone else and this bad information kept spreading around between people who never bothered to check!”

“If you like, we could hop off in the Tardis and find some druids, I understand that they had some rather inventive uses for the plant.”

“Yeah, I know what those were; so if that’s your idea of a chat-up line it needs work.”

“I’m guessing by this practiced tirade this problem already existed in nineteen eighty five?”

“….yeah.” Peri admitted, realising how loud her voice had gotten and trying to tone it back a little. “My family _might_ have heard this rant every Christmas for the past, oh, ten years or so.”

“And not earlier than that? Didn’t little eight year old Perpugilliam know she wanted to be a botanist?”

“Eight year old Perpugilliam didn’t really mind it if people were making a mistake, not everyone was as interested in plants as I was.”

“Well, that’s very reasonable, for a child.”

“…and I got to feel smarter than them.” she admitted sheepishly. The Doctor laughed and put his arm about her shoulder affectionately. She laughed quietly and leaned her head against his chest.

“We’re such a pair, aren’t we?” she laughed. “Always annoyed by something or another.”

“At least we have one another to listen to our mad rants and tell the other when they’re completely off their nut.” The travellers smiled at each other.

 

“You’re quite right, though.” agreed the Doctor. “It isn’t mistletoe. It isn’t even a kissing ball, which could well have been made of pine and holly. It’s simple, commonplace spring of holly, tritely used in the place of another plant. I’m under no obligation to kiss you at all.”

The Doctor smiled at Peri, and then leaned forward to place a swift kiss on her lips. Rather too swift for her taste, by the time she was quite sure what he was doing, he had finished and pulled away.

The Doctor smiled, looking a bit like the cat who caught the canary: braced for the repercussions but very pleased with what he had done.

“ _No obligation_ , but I will confess a minor compulsion.”


End file.
